Case Study: High Performing Work Team Analysis

This assignment is worth 20% of your final grade. It gives you an opportunity to analyze a tool used to assess the performance of a team. You must complete this assignment individually, without contacting other students. If you have any questions about this assignment, please post them in the ‘Ask the Professor' discussion forum so that everyone can benefit from the answers.The assignment addresses Course Objectives 3, 4 and 5.

Organizations often use surveys or questionnaires to obtain information regarding employee satisfaction, the organizational issues impacting staff performance, perceptions of pay and benefits, organizational culture, etc. Sometimes, questionnaires are used in classes for staff development and focus on behavioral styles, conflict styles, or team behaviors. Additionally, they may be used to help intact teams or departments focus on and resolve team differences or performance issues. Many times, the questions themselves provide people with insight into what the organization expects from its employees.

In this assignment, you will imagine that you are part of a team that is not performing at a very high level. As a result all members of your team are completing this survey before you attend team training. You are to read the questions in the High Performing Work Teams Survey. You will analyze the questions, identify the trends you see in the questions, and discuss what you and your team members would learn by taking this survey.

Write 4-7 pages (not counting the cover or reference pages), summarizing the trends you identified, what you and your team members would learn from taking the survey, and conclusions about what is required of team members in order to create a high performing work team. Outside academic sources must be included in this assignment, and you should integrate readings and concepts from our course materials.

Support your opinions and statements with a minimum of five references from sources published within the last ten years. You can cite scholarly and practitioner-oriented journals, newspaper articles, YouTube videos, (but not Wikipedia, vendor websites, or other non-academic sources.) The UMUC online library is a great source. JSTOR, ABI INform, etc., are good databases that can be found in the UMUC library and UMUC librarians can help you identify appropriate sources. See the Library link in the Resources section (on the blue ribbon at the top of our classroom) for more information and to begin searching for sources. You may also want to consider having your paper "proofed" by another class member. Please read the attached Criteria for Grading Individual Reflection Paper for details on how your paper will be graded.

Use APA format for citations, references, and quotations. This means your list of references should start on a separate page, and should be double spaced, with a hanging indent and no spaces between entries. Your report should be 4 - 7 pages (not counting the cover or reference pages), double spaced with one inch margins and a font size of at least 11 points.

Learning Objectives

• Describe the different types of groups and teams in organizations;

• Compare and contrast your experiences in groups and teams with those of your classmates in terms of functions, demographics, and technology;

• Identify and list the current trends in teams as they are being used in today's organizations.

• Define team identity in organizations;

• Recognize and summarize the concepts of team trust, cohesion, collaboration, and communication;

• Begin to apply team development and socialization processes to a work team.

• Define team performance in organizations;

• Recognize the stages of team development;

• Identify and mitigate the impact of social loafing and free-riding on teams;

• Recommend types of recognition and rewards for team performance.